“It shall be the first duty of the Republic to make provision for the
physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children, to secure
that no child shall suffer hunger or cold, for lack of food, clothing or
shelter, but that all shall be provided with the means and facilities
requisite for their proper education and training as Citizens of a Free
and Gaelic Ireland.”

The preceding quote was a central element of the Democratic Programme of
the First Dail and echoed the declaration within the 1916 Proclamation
that all of the children of the nation should be cherished equally.

The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse, published this
week, left no one in any doubt that children in the Twenty-Six County
state were never treated equally. That the measure of a society can be
judged by how it treats its most vulnerable was a watchword of James
Connolly: the testimony of the more than 1,500 people who gave evidence
to this Inquiry is a damning indictment of the nature of the southern
state. This was a state that deemed it appropriate to incarcerate
children living in poverty and chose to ignore consistent reports of the
torment they endured in these institutions.

A staggering total of 170,000 children were incarcerated in Industrial
Schools from 1936 to 1970. The Commission’s report documents the
systematic abuse, torture and neglect of thousands of children banished
to industrial schools run by catholic religious orders the length and
breadth of the state.

From Artane in Dublin to Letterfrack in Galway; from St Joseph’s
Industrial School in Tralee to St Joseph’s ‘Orphanage’ in Bundoran;
children were starved, beaten, sexually abused and humiliated. The vast
majority received little or no education; instead, they were effectively
used as slave labour for a regime that dehumanised them. Thousands have
been left emotionally and psychologically traumatised, many meeting
premature deaths in conditions of absolute poverty. This was not a case
of a few bad apples in the system: it was systematic institutional abuse
of children on a state-wide scale.

Just a few examples will suffice. Letterfrack was described as “an
inhospitable, bleak, isolated institution, accessible only by car or
bicycle and out of reach for family or friends of boys incarcerated
there. Physical punishment was severe, excessive and pervasive... sexual
abuse was a chronic problem”.

In Daingean, County Offaly, children were routinely stripped naked and
flogged. According to the report, those children who passed through this
so-called reformatory “were brutalised by the experience and some were
damaged by it”.

Artane Industrial School was the largest in the state; it was a place
where “physical punishment of boys was excessive and pervasive and,
because of its arbitrary nature, led to a climate of fear amongst the
boys”. Sexual abuse of boys was a “chronic problem”.

Goldenbridge Industrial School in Inchicore was run by the Sisters of
Mercy. Its method of inflicting punishment and the implements used “were
cruel and excessive and physical punishment was an immediate response to
even minor infractions”. Child labour was a routine feature of this
regime; it was used in the manufacture of rosary beads and, according to
the report: “this industry was conducted in a way that imposed
impossible standards on children and caused great suffering to many of
them”.

The testimony of those who survived this regime is harrowing. The vast
majority of the children incarcerated in these institutions were there
simply because their families were poor. The state paid religious orders
to lock up children living in poverty. Behind the high walls of these
institutions, children suffered the most appalling abuse and privation.

From the establishment of industrial schools in 1868, over 100,000
children were incarcerated in these institutions and, right up to the
1950s, over 6,000 children were locked up in industrial schools at any
one time. The timeframe for the Commission’s Inquiry ran from 1936 to
the present. Not only does it document the horrific level of abuse of
children, it also details how Catholic Church authorities ignored
consistent complaints of abuse and simply moved known and persistent
abusers from one institution to another. The care and safety of children
was secondary to the protection of their tormentors. Many of these
abusers received glowing references and continued to torture children in
their new placements. How did such appalling abuse take place over such
a long period?

The Industrial School system was a legacy of British rule in Ireland. In
1922, responsibility for this system fell to the Free State Department
of Education. From its establishment, the Free State entrusted the
education and care of children to catholic religious orders and
continued the policy of incarcerating children.

Notwithstanding substantial reforms to the system in Britain in the
1930s, the industrial school system in the Twenty-Six Counties became
the primary means through which the state dealt with child poverty.
While the Catholic Church dominated many aspects of social life in the
early years of the Free State and maintained its dominance for over
half-a-century through the control of education, health and welfare
services, it was only in a position to do so because the state directly
provided the funds to religious orders to organise these services.

All industrial schools were provided a per capita grant for each child,
yet the state systematically ignored both official and unofficial
reports of serious abuse and neglect of children. The system of funding
for these institutions actually encouraged religious orders to increase
the numbers of children held under their control. The greater number of
children, the greater the level of funding. In this, they were assisted
by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, known by
children as the ‘cruelty man’, who, in removing children living in
poverty from their families, provided the religious orders a steady flow
of income and a ready source of slave labour.

In the 1940s, P O Muircheartaigh, the inspector of industrial and
reformatory schools, reported on serious underfeeding of children in
industrial schools, particularly those run by the Sisters of Mercy. He
reported that this was “a serious indictment of the system of industrial
schools run by nuns” that “should not be tolerated in a Christian
community”.

Ironically, given the fact that most children were incarcerated as a
result of poverty, O Muircheartaigh observed: “if the children’s parents
subjected them to semi-starvation and lack of proper clothing and
attention from which they suffer in some industrial schools the parents
would be prosecuted”.

An Irish-American priest, Edward Flanagan, who ran a childcare centre in
the US, travelled to Ireland in 1946 and visited many of the industrial
schools. He was horrified at what he witnessed and described the
industrial school system as a disgrace to the nation.

The political establishment was not impressed by his observations. The
Fianna Fail minister for justice, Gerald Boland, dismissed Flanagan’s
testimony, claiming he didn’t know what he was talking about and
exaggerated what he witnessed. Fine Gael leader James Dillon denounced
Flanagan for publishing what he described as “falsehoods and slanders,”
claiming that he had “done a grave injustice not only to the legislators
of this country, but to the decent, respectable, honest men who are
members of the Irish Christian Brothers”. These were the same Christian
Brothers many of whose members were involved in raping and torturing
children. Calls for a public inquiry into the system were dismissed by
Fianna Fail minister for education Tom Derrig because it was claimed it
“would serve no useful purpose”.

The political establishment in the Twenty-Six Counties, represented by
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, saw no useful purpose in investigating the
systematic abuse of the most vulnerable in Irish society. It is a
shameful testimony on a society that criminalised the impoverished while
institutionalising poverty and refused to respond to serious criminal
acts against children. Those in poverty were voiceless and powerless in
the face of the political and social ruling classes who controlled their
lives.

No religious orders have been brought before the courts for these crimes
against children. Regimes of torture have gone unpunished. Not only have
religious orders escaped punishment, they continue to be paid by the
state for the provision of a range of day care services for children,
the elderly and people with disabilities.

In 2007, a total of just 10 religious orders received in excess of O376
million [#331 million] from the Twenty-Six County Health Services
Executive, with one order, the Brothers of Charity, receiving O166
million [#146 million].

A 2005 report from the Twenty-Six County comptroller and auditor general
expressed concern about the manner in which funding for these services
was allocated and highlighted both a distinct lack of clarity about the
costs of the services being purchased by the state and a lack of
accountability about the quality of those services.

There is a continuing myth that religious orders are charitable
organisations. The figures from the HSE suggest otherwise. These orders
have financial turnovers equivalent to large corporations. They are also
in possession of large tracts of land and a substantial property
portfolio throughout the state. Notwithstanding their healthy financial
state, they will pay just 10 per cent of the estimated O1 billion costs
relating to the redress scheme and legal costs of the Inquiry. Under a
deal agreed with the state in 2002, religious orders were indemnified
from redress claims in exchange for cash payments and property transfers
equivalent to O127 million [#112 million].

The publication of the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Child
Abuse has succeeded in exposing the sickness at the heart of the
Twenty-Six County state and has given voice to many hundreds of those
who were incarcerated at the behest of the state and tortured at the
hands of religious orders.

It was another world from that envisioned in the Democratic Programme of
the First Dail, in which the well being and education of children was to
be paramount. Instead, children living in poverty were criminalised,
forcibly removed from their families and locked up in institutions,
where they suffered the most appalling privations. The abuse was
systematic and widespread. It involved the courts, state institutions
and government departments, state agencies, such as the
perversely-titled Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and
over a dozen religious orders. It was funded by the Dublin government
and happened because the neo-colonial state vested power and privilege
within a social class that treated those experiencing poverty as second
class citizens who were responsible for the circumstances in which they
found themselves. Such a system perpetuated gross inequality and ensured
that wealth remained in the hands of a small minority.

While the torture of children in these institutions may have ended, the
legacy remains. It is found in the broken lives of those who were
subjected to these regimes of torture, in their continuing poverty and
homelessness.

The system of childcare in the Twenty-Six Counties remains chaotic;
6,500 children at risk of abuse or neglect have not been allocated a
social worker. Over the last number of years, 20 children in the care of
the state have died from neglect. Young teenagers in need of care have
been assigned to entirely inappropriate ‘emergency’ bed and breakfast
accommodation; many have died as a result of drug overdoses.

Throughout the economic boom, levels of childhood poverty grew and
recent budget cuts have targeted children’s hospitals and children
suffering educational disadvantage. Those in power in the Twenty-Six
Counties remain committed to inequality and unconcerned about the impact
of their policies. The Commission of Inquiry has recommended the
erection of a memorial to those incarcerated within the Industrial
School system. The construction of a society that cherishes all of the
children of the nation equally would be the only really fitting
monument.

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